Introducing… South Central

The Badger was fortunate enough to catch South Central at Concorde2 last Monday just before they went on stage to support Does It Offend You, Yeah?. Nick Blumsom pitched some burning questions to the hotter-than-hot new indie-dance band.

How long have you been a band together?

Rob: About 2 years. Me and Keith… we had another indie band, completely different from this, but we were dance producers as well. We were doing dance records to fund the indie band.

You have a very produced sound on your records. How important is the live element to you?

Rob: We really play everything live, we don’t fucking press play. I think if you end up touring all your life with playback, you’d get bored – you’re not actually feeling what you’re playing. It’s a big challenge to do dance music which is live: everyone presses play in our scene. Take Daft Punk; they just press play and it’s a fucking light show! Also, I love it when something fucks up live on stage! ‘Cause that’s real life.

On MySpace, you describe yourself as Experimental…

Rob: Yes. Well, Keith builds his own instruments… in the studio we have instruments that no-one else has!

Keith: You have to keep in mind that 2 years ago, no-one was really doing fat beats with guitars like we were doing. We thought it was quite ‘experimental’ back then, although everyone is doing it now.

… and you say one of your influences is Stevie Wonder…

Rob: Yes, for me, Stevie Wonder really, he’s the soul of music. He’s got the melodies and everything. It’s another feeling you can get from music. And the artists back then liked be as tight as possible… and that’s what we try to do, but in an indie way, a modern way.

How has the media taken to your sound? Have you been courted by NME yet?

Keith: [laughs] We were discussing this upstairs earlier!

Rob: We’re trying to make big sounds with guitars, and some people can’t get used to it… a lot of media hated it last year, but they’re like “we like it now”. ‘Cause we do dance and rock mixed together, we’re in the middle, and there’s a lot of politics! But, fuck it, I think it’ll work in the end.

Where would you like to see yourself next year? Have you got any particular aims?

Keith: World domination!

Rob: Keith’s not far off! But we’re doing it in a slow way. I don’t want to be played on Radio 1 once, and then be forgotten about, like 80% of the bands you get. We have our own label, and we can do our own promotion, around the world. We’re not expecting it to blow up; we’re just doing the best music we can do, and we’ll see from there.

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